day·dream /ˈdāˌdrēm/ noun

1.pleasant thoughts that distract from a situation

fingers drum against my desk. up and down, up and down. perhaps they reach for my pen and click it occasionally; in all honesty, i have lost track of their location. 

i have lost track of most things, it seems.

thoughts float through my head, coming and going as they please. sometimes they take the form of dancers, moving gracefully to the beat coursing through my earbuds; other times, they become villains wearing big black combat boots that stop through puddles with reckless abandon. my hands lift on their own accord, swiping through the air as if trying to paint the images that flash in front of me, and i can feel my face contorting into various expressions aligning with the moments fluttering in my mind. it is pure bliss, pure ignorance, pure serenity. 

my schoolwork lays unfinished in front of my unseeing eyes, but there will be more time later. for now, i sink deeper into the fantasies i have created, feeling freer than i ever have before.

2. unwarranted thoughts that grip the attention and never let go

fingers run up and down the seam of the quilt, getting faster and faster and faster until numbness spreads into my hand.  back and forth, back and forth, backandforth. i know where they are and what they are doing, though i cannot control them lest i implode upon myself.

everything is vivid. all of it.

the near-hallucinations flash violently in front and inside of me, unnaturally unblurred by the tears that fill my eyes. they mutate from one horrid  delusion to the next, shoving files of perverted and grotesque scenes into my overwhelmed mind and cackling into my ears. i feel my voice crying out in desperation somewhere next to me. my body curls up, trying to protect itself, but the thing destroying it is on the inside, so it screams louder. i finally force myself to stretch out, take a shaky breath, and lay facing the other side of the bed, gritting my teeth as the dreams continue trample through my head like a herd of unruly bison. it is pure horror, pure torture, pure disgust.

my pillow lays unused in the middle of the night, stains of tears and snot soaking through to the feathers. i do not know when i can finally return to it, but for now, my phone is in my hand, my fingers anxiously darting around to find something to distract the fantasies and make them leave.